This is a highly useful and readable collection of essays about Don DeLillo's most widely taught novel. For the university instructor, on the verge of introducing their students to this modern classic, it provides a luxuriously large and varied number of approaches to teaching White Noise, most of which will stimulate thought and some of which will surprise with their originality and verve. It begins with an admirable section that details some of the literary and electronic resources likely to be most useful in exploring the novel, including a short list of criticism and DeLillo's own essays. This is followed by the editors' introduction, which explains, with clarity, the rationale of each essay.

The book takes as its raison d'être the notion that DeLillo's prophecy of “rampant consumerism” and “information overload” “have simply become the lived experience of most of our current undergraduates” who, consequently, are prone to reading the novel as mere description of contemporary life, without appreciating its satirical intent. The strategies designed to counter the assumptions of this far from ideal reader are helpfully divided into five sections, beginning with “Cultural and Theoretical Approaches” and “Electronic Media Technology,” then “Classroom Techniques and Strategies,” followed by two further sections that deal with literary context: “Teaching White Noise in the Context of Other DeLillo Novels” and “Surveying White Noise.”

The early sections often focus on the need to explain to students the concept of ideology and the complex role that electronic media may play in its dissemination.

The final section of the book contains essays that situate the novel in the context of nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature, from Thoreau to Sinclair Lewis. As well as providing ideas for tutorials, these pieces often make an interesting contribution to DeLillo criticism. For example, John N. Duvall's “White Noise, Postmodernism, and Postmodernity” understands better than most critical work the centrality to White Noise of issues surrounding selfhood, especially with regard to Jack, and, provocatively, compares DeLillo's protagonist to Jake Barnes and Silas Lapham.

On occasion, differences between US and British higher education mean that some suggestions get lost in translation. British academics may feel envious of certain contributors who refer to their third or fourth meeting with students to discuss White Noise, while they struggle to fit discussion into a single hour. Nevertheless, this book is an insightful and practical guide to its subject, which is likely to prove extremely popular.